


Can I Call You Tonight?

by flyingisland



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Intrusive Fantasies, M/M, Restaurants, Secondhand embarrassment, Waiting, slight sugar daddy implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland
Summary: Lance makes a lot of mistakes, but somehow, things still work out.





	Can I Call You Tonight?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meeokie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meeokie/gifts).



“McClain, can you grab that two-top in the dining room? Pidge is going on break.”

Lance pauses mid-walk through the kitchen door. He drops his eyes closed and composes himself with a deep sigh before swiveling around on his heel and beaming his most insincere grin at his boss, watching him from over the wide stoves and popping fryers with a clipboard in hand. He doesn’t have the heart to tell the poor schmuck that he’s already been run ragged with one table of 15 that keeps sending back their food, or the trio who asked him for so many substitutes in their entrees that he isn’t sure if they even qualify as the same meals anymore. He can’t tell the guy that he’s already an hour and a half late for his first 15-minute break and his lunch is looming frightfully close each passing moment, because they’re busy this evening. He knows this. And he also knows that he isn’t getting paid a hefty $2.50 per hour plus tips to be choosy about the tables that he takes.

He feels the slightest sting of aggravation at the thought of postponing the refills that he should have tackled ten minutes ago at another of his tables. He wonders if he’ll even meet the minimum wage requirement tonight in tips alone when his boss seems so adamant that he can easily manage multiple large tables that are so time-consuming that he hasn’t actually done a good job with a single customer since his shift started earlier in the afternoon.

They’re short-staffed and he’s been pulled threadbare in all directions. He resolves his momentary pity party and collects himself well enough to respond without a single telling hitch of anger in his tone, but he fantasizes about a version of this reality, a splintered alternate universe where he says, instead, “No, fuck you. I’m taking my lunch on time tonight!”

Which parallels in a perfectly unflattering way with the weaselly, pitiful manner that he says, out loud, in this more pathetic fork in the universal timeline:

“Sure thing, boss man. I’ll be right there after I get these refills out.”

His lips twitch at the sides as he fights his primal urge to lunge himself over the fryers and grab the guy by the collar, demanding that maybe if he doesn’t want a fried cheek, he should drop that stupid clipboard and bus some tables himself. He knows that he’s too cowardly and clumsy to pull it off anyway, but that doesn’t stop the white-hot rage from licking inside of him when his boss counters with a flat, unaffected, “Hunk will cover the refills. Take the two-top now.”

Lance grits his teeth, maintains some semblance of his shallow, deceptive grin, and nods once, jerky and hard.

“Absolutely! I’d love to do nothing more!”

And he’s gone before his boss can reprimand him for being sarcastic, before he can even begin to suspect that he isn’t being genuine as he slips through the revolving doors of the kitchen and grabs two napkin-rolls of cutlery and two paper menus.

His feet and his back and his head ache. They throb at random, unsynced intervals in a way that never gives his body even a moment to mend itself back together. He’s already looking forward to ending his shift tonight and heading home. To lugging the foot bath that he’d bought on sale a few weeks ago from under a pile of dirty clothes next to his laundry basket in his bedroom, then settling down on his worn-out armchair in the living room with a wine cooler and his favorite reality TV show. He’ll soak his feet and relax his muscles and drown out his sorrows in the exciting, dramatic adventures of the fight-happy women that he’d preemptively scheduled his DVR to record. He’ll find himself lulled into complacency by sweet, sweet blue raspberry flavored alcohol and bubbly hot water that will hopefully ease the ache of his own misery and directionlessness and mid-twenties sense of looming mediocrity. 

He steadies himself with slow breathing exercises that he watched in a video online once. He reminds himself to return to his zen place when things get hard: a universe where he’s an affluent trust-fund baby who makes five billion dollars an hour while he sleeps. He lives in an 8500 square foot Hollywood McMansion, situated comfortably in the lap of luxury. He never wants for anything but the most refined jewelry and clothing and sports cars that the world can offer him. He toils his endless free days away eating grapes offered to him on a weighty vine in the pinched fingers of his butler. He traipses around his lavish estate in nothing but a sheer, fur-trimmed negligee with a thin-stemmed champagne flute between his fingers that’s refilled dutifully each time he nears the end.

He’ll get there someday, he tells himself, one hot plate of hickory-smoked bacon and flakey biscuits smothered thick, steaming gravy at a time.

He’ll find himself severing ties with this stupid southern-theme diner and the dumb shanties that they have to sing for birthdays, the stiff tartan shirts and inconvenient and itchy cowboy hats, the ridiculously named meals, and the overpriced gift shop, and… he isn’t sure what he’ll do then. But he knows, by the time that he reaches his fated two-top, that it definitely can’t be any worse than this.

“Howdy there,  _ partners _ , what can I get  _ y’all  _ to sip on tonight?”

The words roll awkwardly off of his tongue. He’s never been very good at emulating a cornfed, deep South accent for the sake of making his clientele feel more “at home” here, as his boss has always coached him to do, but he has a feeling, from the way that only one customer actually looks up at him and smiles, that this particular pair won’t have any complaints on the matter. Most people around his age don’t, he knows, and these two, while noticeably more dressed up than he is, definitely fall at least a few years within his age bracket. It’s the old people and the parents who pull his boss aside to groan about how he isn’t authentic enough. It’s the church ladies and the drunken slobs slumped over at the bar who accuse him of lacking some proverbial pep in his step that’s apparently integral to their enjoyment of cheap Southern-inspired entrees. 

But this pair seems wholly unaffected by his lack of pizzazz and enthusiasm. Maybe on a better night, when he isn’t so exhausted and frustrated and stressed to the extreme, he could offer them his signature “Lance Definitely Went to Theater Camp in Middle School and Loved It” experience, but tonight… he’s just not feeling it. And despite how distantly he might feel just a little bit guilty about that, the man across from him doesn’t falter his smile or raise a curious, unimpressed brow, or seem as though he’s going to make any move to cause a fuss. And his quiet friend across the table still hasn’t managed to unglue himself from his phone long enough to register that Lance is actually looming over him at all.

He hands the smiling guy a menu, sliding the other across the surface of the table to rest in front of the sulky, quiet one who continues focusing all of his attention on his phone in lieu of giving any level of a damn that a waiter is here and ready to take his order. He clears his throat as quietly as he can manage, working out his nerves and straightening his posture as he realizes that he asked both of them a very important question and no one seems willing to actually offer him a response.

“S-so, uh… a few minutes? Do you need some… of those? Ah, you know…  _ minutes _ ?”

The smiling guy—a handsome, broad-shouldered thing with closely-cropped salt and pepper hair and a jaw chiseled from diamonds—shoots up straighter in his seat. He drums his fingers against the table before flipping the menu over hurriedly. It flutters as the other guy continues tuning both of them out. Lance bites his lip, and the handsome, beefy customer scrolls a finger over the beverage choices before tipping his head up once again and meeting Lance with cute pink cheeks.

“A strawberry lemonade would be great, thank you.”

Lance nods, patting around in the front of his apron and tugging out his notepad and pen, jotting it down next to a little heart that in his mind is shorthand for “Heartthrob”.

“And for you, sir?”

He’s met, again, with silence.

The other guy, smaller and softer in all of the places where his friend is firm and angled, and beautiful in ways that Lance is having a lot of trouble not thinking about right now while he’s so obviously supposed to _ not _ ogle his clientele, clicks a few more keys on his phone. His long lashes flutter against his high cheekbones, his lips cracked open and his jaw slack as Lance catches sight of him sending a few quick texts before he raises his eyes to meet Lance’s. They’re blue, Lance thinks, but maybe Liz Taylor-violet. And it suits him, in the same way that the unruly curled edges framing the white slopes of his perfectly-crafted cheeks suit the image of a movie star. A face that Lance could easily find himself staring at mindlessly on a magazine hung in the check-out line at the drugstore. Pouty and mysterious and icy in a way that sends a rogue, traitorous shiver up Lance’s spine.

“Water is fine,” he says curtly, and Lance is left for a moment to stew in the fact that he clearly heard him but, for some reason, decided not to answer until it got weird and Lance was forced to spend a fretful few seconds wondering if he’d have to repeat himself for the third time.

He feels his polite smile slip, but he catches it quickly, shoving it back in place.

“Do you guys need some time to decide on your food?”

The snotty one raises a brow, the edges of his lips pulling somehow even further down as he motions vaguely in the direction of his still-closed menu on the table with his free hand, the one not still clutching his phone.

“You mean longer than the two seconds between when you handed us these menus and now? Do we look like we eat here all the time? Like we have regular orders or whatever?”

Lance’s eyes widen. His cheeks pool with heat and the other guy, across the table, clicks his tongue and drops his menu to the table with a firm slap of his hand against the wood.

“Keith,” he says, “Be nice.”

This “Keith” levels him with a long, exasperated look. Lance fumbles with his notepad for a second and says, hurriedly and clumsily and laced with stumbles and jitters, “O-okay, well, uh… I’ll give you some time then! Take all the time you need, all night if you gotta!”

And he splits.

He wonders if they notice when he takes longer than necessary to mix a strawberry lemonade and fill a glass with water. He wonders if Keith is the kind of guy to set out money on the table as a symbolic tip and remove a dollar every time that he doesn’t do his job up to his standard. He sucks in his cheeks, chewing on the inside of his lip and mulling over that snide tone and the rudeness of his words, and mocks him in the privacy of his thoughts where he is a king sitting upon his mighty throne and Keith is nothing but a pitiful jester bowed and begging and wriggling desperately between his knees.

And he catches himself quickly, so mortified when he realizes that it’s “at his feet”, and that Keith definitely shouldn’t be  _ wriggling _ in this revenge fantasy, that he spills the strawberry lemonade with a clatter of the glass against the floor. It doesn’t break, thankfully, but he still tosses it into the reserve of hot, soapy water left in the sink across the kitchen and fretfully wipes up the mess before putting together another one.

He’s very tired tonight, and he feels that exhaustion weighing heavily not only on his eyelids and aching muscles but on his psyche. On his libido. On any sense of dignity that he’s managed to maintain in this line of work that definitely wouldn’t allow him to still feel gross, lusty feelings for any other person who spoke to him as Keith spoke to him just minutes ago. But he can’t get the image out of his head anyway, of stupid handsome Keith tucked between his knees and gazing up at him with those alluring, violet eyes. Of his handsome friend flanking Lance’s backside, both of their hands tugging away the fragile strings holding his translucent negligee in place—and he curses himself for tainting even his zen place with that bastard’s idiotic, smug face. He hates that now that the levee is broken, he can’t stop the intrusive thoughts from slipping in and flooding the forefront of his mind.

He’ll work this out over a regretful hate-jackoff session later tonight. He’ll compartmentalize all of these rampant fantasies for the time being and focus, instead, on the job that he’s getting paid peanuts for.

Keith is a dumb idiot of a paying customer and he’s a smug asshole who just happens to be very, very attractive in that enticing sugar daddy sort of way. And his friend, too, isn’t a guy that Lance could ever imagine himself saying no to, especially if they wanted to both take him at the same—

_ Okay! _ Okay, enough. He’s done thinking about it. He promptly exiles every last remnant of that forbidden idea to the tightest of steel cages at the back of his thoughts. He sucks in a deep breath. He closes his eyes and turns his head upward and thinks about eating grapes from a weighty stem. He thinks about watching the newest episode of his favorite reality TV show. He thinks about his hot date with the foot bath that he bought, awaiting him back at his apartment once he survives this Hell on Earth tonight.

This forced distraction grants him a few baby steps through the kitchen doors and back into the noisy, over-crowded dining room.

He’s barely composed when he returns to the table, can’t allow himself to glance in Keith’s direction longer than a measly two seconds as he sets down his glass and slides it between him and his handsome friend on the table. He swallows heavily, forcing a grin as the Heartthrob thanks him for his drink. He finds himself momentarily caught and glued in that sweet smile, wondering what he might have done in a past life to be afforded this brief glimpse at perfection incarnate and thinking, too, that it’s such a travesty that he didn’t meet this man in a smoky, low-lit mid-century bar where he might have extended a long-stemmed cigarette that this handsome stranger would have reached out to light with his gold-encrusted Zippo. And that the two of them, in another splintered universe, could have fallen deeply, irrevocably in love without being torn apart so tragically by Lance’s unfortunate and incredibly demeaning career as a waiter dressed like a sad cowboy.

And with these newfound daydreams in mind, when he means to say,  _ “Are you ready to tell me what you want?” _ , he has no idea why suddenly the universe has decided to hate him. Why he’s never allowed even a single moment of peace or why God doesn’t want him to be happy.

But instead of any reasonable mistake, instead of any question that might be botched in a way that allows for some level of understanding or empathy from these two, poor innocent bystanders who just happen to be perhaps the most gorgeous duo that this wretched country-style diner has ever seen, he opens his big, dumb mouth, and he asks, “Are you ready to want me?”

And he turns on his heel immediately after, face scorching as Keith and his friend snap their heads up in his direction, as Keith spits a laugh and his friend’s eyes double in size, and he walks stiffly back towards the kitchen, allowing the door to swing open and closed behind him as he escapes to safety and considers how much he really needs this job after all.

He can’t go back out there now. He cannot imagine a single version of his life where he walks back into the dining room, looks those men in the eyes, and doesn’t immediately die. God would surely have the mercy to strike him down where he stood. No one could ever question the bolt of lightning sprung through the rafters in the ceiling and the tin roof and concentrated solely on the idiot in the oversized cowboy hat, stammering through what would surely be another social blunder that would hammer the final nails in his metaphorical romantic coffin.

He cups his hands over his burning cheeks, his back falling to rest against one of the large bucket sinks against the wall as he listens to the country music muffled under the sound of the hissing fryers and the cooks chatting loudly on the other end of the room. And he thinks about how many of his tables probably need refills right now, how many patrons are surely complaining because their finished plates haven’t been cleared yet. He isn’t entirely certain at this point that he won’t quit without notice the moment that his boss walks into the kitchen to reprimand him, but he can’t help but feel a little bit guilty anyway. His slack will be picked up by his co-workers, and it’ll only add more stress to their busy dinner evening. And the tips won’t be bad for them, sure, but he knows that sometimes that’s less important when it comes to being given piles and piles of work atop an already precariously stacked roster of overwhelming tasks.

His cheeks cool to a temperature that’s only slightly above what it needs to be. Lance reminds himself in a startling show of maturity that he won’t have to look at Keith or his attractive stranger of a buddy ever again once they pay their check and get the Hell out of here. They probably won’t come back after this, and good riddance. They might leave a weird review online, but he doesn’t know anyone who actually takes the time to read those.

Everything is going to be okay. Life will move on. Lance will grow older and forget about tonight. In a year from now, this humiliating blunder will become just another regrettable memory that keeps him awake late at night but ultimately has no real effect on his day-to-day experiences.

He sighs deeply, running his palms over the front of his shirt and apron to work out the wrinkles and his residual nerves.

He can do this. And if Keith has anything smart to say when he gets back there, this job isn’t nearly important enough to stop him from reaching over the two-top and wringing his dumb skinny throat.

This mental-images empowers him. He wheels around, shoving through the kitchen door and marching straight back to the table, poised already with straight, high shoulders and a finger pointed upward, loaded and ready for a long series of wagging in Keith’s stupid face.

But he’s distracted immediately after, flagged by a table just out of the door by an elderly woman who asks for a refill, then two of his tables need to be cleared and another wants dessert, and he finds himself so wrapped up in these various built-up tasks that he almost forgets about the two-top entirely. 

Throughout the next ten or so minutes, he can’t help but notice the tingling on his back, the feeling rested there of someone’s eyes lingering on him as he rushes between tables to complete every job required of him. He makes the mistake of craning his neck around as he sets a plate of baked beans on an elderly man’s table, finding himself meeting the dark eyes of Keith’s muscular friend, who smiles at him in a light and understanding way, as though he might wait here all evening patiently for Lance to finish his work before he ever gets the chance to take his order.

Keith, just across the table, is talking as he continues sending texts on his phone. Lance can see his lips moving, but he can’t hear the words over the music and the dull hum of the crowded dining room, and the clinking of forks and spoons and glasses and the chirping of the other waitstaff taking their respective orders from their respective tables that they surely aren’t avoiding like Lance is avoiding Heartthrob and Keith.

He swallows hard. He flicks his eyes away and ignores the heat crawling back into his cheeks. Instead, he nods and smiles and tells his table across the dining room to flag him if they need anything else.

And after that, a death march. He can hear the pounding of the drums in the form of his own pulse speeding in his ears as he draws nearer and nearer to Keith and his muscular friend.

Both men, he notices as he nears them and sizes them up, are dressed in casual business attire. Keith’s long, thick hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, spilling out over the back of his jacket and curling in all directions. Heartthrob is wearing a thick-banded gold watch that he fiddles with idly as he watches Keith, as he continues smiling in a soft way as though he’s admiring a cute cat video online or reading a particularly sappy greeting card and not simply staring at the unpleasant, presumptuous asshole that Keith so far tonight has proven himself to be. And Lance sees it under the table, notices for the first time that their dress shoes are pressed close together and Keith’s leg has slid forward to rest comfortably against Heartthrob’s. They’re folded together like the two covers of a book, intertwined in a way that reminds Lance of otters floating in open water, or every cheesy love song that he’s ever listened to. It’s a subtle display of affection that has Lance feeling mortified all over again, so flustered when he thinks about the two of them having the audacity to be so handsome and so well-built and so openly  _ together _ in a public place that it’s hard to maintain his smile as he draws close enough to speak to them again. 

It’s not that Lance is disgusted by it, not that he’s ever been the type of person to abhor PDA, but… in the most forbidden recesses of his mind, he can’t stop himself from unwillingly picturing what their lives might look like when they aren’t playing it safer and more appropriate in the public eye.

In the flash of a heartbeat and a staggered breath as he struggles to find coherent words in his throat, he imagines how Keith’s hair might spill out of that ponytail when Heartthrob reaches forward and hooks a finger around the hair tie, tugging it away. He thinks about how Keith might rub his eyes tiredly at the end of a long day of answering business emails on his phone and how Heartthrob might rub his back or his shoulders and how the two of them might spoon together, half-naked, between downy blankets and expensive Egyptian sheets spun by exotic silk, or… whatever rich businessmen buy for their homes. Dual showers in the morning and coy smiles at work. The two of them sneaking off after hours to catch dinner and play footsie under the table while the most idiotic waiter in the universe convinces himself that he’d ever have any chance with either of them when they so clearly don’t consider him to even be a blip on their radar.

Lance is in Hell. 

He’s burning hotter by the minute, and he doesn’t know how long he’ll last here before he melts into the fibers of the laminate under his shoes.

He doesn’t know why it hurts his feelings just a little bit, but today has been a hard day. It’s difficult to slave from the beginning to the end of his shift for pennies and return to his apartment alone at night when rich bastards with beautiful, loving partners get to come and go whenever they want. When they aren’t confined to this prison as he is, can slip through the bars just long enough to eat and go as they please. And he knows that they probably won’t even tip him with what a dumbass he’s been, and he only has himself and his out of control libido to blame for that.

He’ll go home tonight, and the water in his foot bath won’t ever feel hot enough to burn away the shame. The women in his favorite reality TV show won’t kick up some new drama that will distract him wholly from the aching in his heart. The wilted grapes in his fridge and the plumper, fresher ones in his zen place won’t satiate the hunger that he feels crawling inside of him. The wine coolers might help though, as his sole silver lining. He has six left of his variety pack, and his brain isn’t coherent enough at the moment to tally up what alcohol percentage could be found in six entire bottles.

“Are you okay, uh… Lance?” 

He’s snapped out of his inner monologue abruptly, by Heartthrob’s voice and his head craned forward to make out the loopy letters on his name badge. He jumps in place, standing at attention and ignoring the ever-present simmering in his cheeks when he realizes that he isn’t locked safety in the invisible room of his subconscious, but standing here like an idiot, yet again, and staring at the table between Keith and his boyfriend as he agonizes over what a crapshoot his life has turned out to be so far.

It’s a shame, honestly, that a person can carry a baby inside of them for nine entire months, that they can speak softly to their child and shower them with attention and bolster this new life with all of their hopes and dreams and endless affection, and even still, despite every effort made to guarantee that a child grows up taken care of and nurtured and loved…

Regardless of the grueling work that a mother and father might invest to send the best version of their combined selves into a welcoming universe, that child grows up to be someone like Lance.

“U-uh, yes, sorry—Man, I’m—I’m sorry, it’s—”

“It’s fine.” Lance is so shocked to hear those words spoken in Keith’s voice that he can only gape down at him, trembling slightly as more color rises aggressively to his cheeks and he fears that he might end his shift with whiplash, given how many times he’s been jerked around emotionally tonight.

“These kinds of jobs suck,” Keith tells him then, voice even and firm as his hard, gorgeous violet-tinged eyes find Lance’s and hold them solidly, extended for a moment that Lance wouldn’t mind lasting for an eternity as he finds himself immediately addicted to the feeling of holding Keith’s entire attention, “I used to wait tables before, well…”

He nods his head vaguely in his boyfriend’s direction as though that should mean anything to Lance. But Lance doesn’t question it, finds that he’s so hinged on whatever words Keith is willing to speak to him in that soft voice that he could say really anything and Lance would lap it up eagerly and without question.

“Anyway, you’re doing fine. We’re not gonna complain to your boss or whatever. We’re not in any hurry to get out of here, so just take your time. Don’t overthink it. We’re not gonna be mad.”

And after that, things are easier. Keith orders the breakfast sampler and Heartthrob gets biscuits and gravy. Lance copies those orders down, thanks them profusely, and scurries back to the kitchen to log the order.

On his way, he can hear Heartthrob’s gentle laughter behind him, and his voice asking softly, “That was nice, Keith. Where did that come from?”

“Well, you can’t deny that he’s—”

And Lance loses the end. It drowns away in the chattering around him and the music playing overhead and the clinking of cutlery and glasses. His mind decides that Keith probably said “pathetic” or “helpless”, but he decides that, right now, he’ll take just about anything that he can get. And he feels better about all of it, in the silliest conceivable way. He feels suddenly as though he isn’t an hour late for his lunch now and didn’t miss his first break entirely. As though he might be able to tackle the remaining four hours of his shift on the strength that those guys afforded him alone, because he _ is _ doing fine. He’s going to be okay.

This job isn’t easy, and even a potential hardass like Keith can admit that.

He distracts himself while their food is cooking by skirting between his other tables, clearing dishes, giving refills, and carrying out the other menial tasks involved in waiting tables as each of his other clients finish their meals. He feels a noticeable bounce in his step as well, barely even finding the strength within himself to be embarrassed when he meets the ever-smiling Heartthrob’s eyes over the heads of other patrons and matches it with a goofier, more exhausted and severely less attractive mirror image. He knows from fleeting glances in reflective surfaces as he works that he’s a little sweaty and tired and washed out. He knows that the low lighting in the dining room doesn’t do much of anything for his features when he’s really more of a sunny-complected kind of guy. 

And he knows that Heartthrob and Keith are very clearly in love with each other, if the tell-tale way that Heartthrob sneaks his hand across the table and crooks a finger between Keith’s palm and his phone is any indication. And how Keith scowls at first, but his expression softens the moment he meets Heartthrob’s eyes. He doesn’t smile with his mouth, doesn’t do much but raise his thick eyebrows and drop his head to the side, releasing his phone to rest on the table, forgotten, as it continues to blip with new messages that go unanswered the longer he holds Heartthrob’s steady gaze. Lance is almost too embarrassed to keep stealing glances at them from afar. But the keyword is “almost”, when he finds that it’s too difficult to look away from such a strangely befitting, albeit it shockingly _ tender _ , look in Keith’s dark eyes as he threads his fingers with Heartthrob’s. 

Lance shakes his head, blowing out a heavy breath and turning his back to both of them as he carries a few dirty plates back into the kitchen. 

“McClain,” his boss greets him, snatching the plates from his arms just seconds after he shoves through the door, “Lunch time, half an hour. Go now.”

“But my table—”

It’s in vain. He’s offered nothing but a stern look, a finger raised in front of his face. And he hears it, the order for the two-top called out by the kitchen staff. He watches in agony as Hunk tosses him an apologetic half-smile and reaches up to grab both plates, skirting around both of them and shoving with his elbow through the revolving door.

And that’s a curtain on his whirlwind romance. The final call, the credits roll. The story of his fleeting love-at-first-sight encounter with two handsome strangers ends before he can even learn Heartthrob’s real name.

He’s sure it would have been something beautiful too. _Leonardo LeMuscl_ _é._ _Caballero Encantador_. Something decadent. Something that rolls off the tongue like melted butter on the sizzling backs of the baked potatoes that he often serves with steaks.

He never had a shot anyway, he knows, so maybe it’s better to remove himself from this situation as one might rip off a bandaid. Quick, with just a brief moment of pain. He tells himself that he’s being silly and melodramatic about all of this, but he doesn’t really feel it in his heart. He sighs and slinks over to the cooler to grab his lunch.

He slips out through the backdoor in the kitchen, welcomed by the cool night air and darkness caged around him in a deserted back alley. 

Lance eats lunch in the smoking area. He’s never touched a cigarette in his life, but during the evening shift, he finds that it’s remote and peaceful in a way that his work-frazzled brain often longs for during the fleeting periods that he’s granted just for himself. He’s packed himself a sack lunch comprised of smashed and soggy peanut butter and jelly and a crushed bag of powdery potato chips. He watches the long strands of white headlights scoring over the alleyway in front of him as cars reverse and right themselves, as they pull out from the parking lot and make their slow journeys back home.

He sighs miserably. He knows that Keith and his handsome stranger of a boyfriend will surely be long gone by the time that his lunch break is over. And he doesn’t know why that depresses him so much. Why, suddenly, he finds that he’d rather forgo lunch altogether if it means simply being able to watch both of them chat and smile and exist so tenderly in that private bubble around the two-top that everyone else seems so keen to ignore.

The country music sounds crisper outdoors. He listens to the droning of heartbreak songs and songs about whiskey and women and partying all night long. And he imagines a version of his life where dressing for work involved more business suits and fewer cowboy hats. Where his boss wasn’t constantly trying to push expensive slip-resist cowboy boots off on the staff in order to maintain more of the southern aesthetic.

He tries to think about a version of himself who doesn’t come back to his quiet, lonely apartment every night reeking of grease and gravy and whatever sauce they put on the baked beans. He wonders if he’d be happier if he were to wake up between those expensive Egyptian silk sheets, sandwiched by two handsome strangers much like the peanut butter in his lunch is encased in soggy white bread.

He doesn’t have an answer for that, but he suspects that anything would be better than customer service. Even being forced to respond in text chat rooms during his off-time can’t be nearly as bad for Keith as that mysterious waiting job that he apparently partook in before… whatever happened with Heartthrob to change that.

He watches the last few minutes of his lunch break tick away on his phone in silence. He gazes out into the black night engulfing the alleyway break area and envisions a version of himself who could be anything but a country-fried failure.

And he throws away his bag in the dumpster before brushing himself off, pushing through the back door and washing his hands in the kitchen. And soon after, dragging himself back into the dining room and finding himself standing alone, surrounded only by overbearing southern music, empty, freshly-cleaned tables, and dwindling customers winding down in the last moments of their meals as the end of his shift is fast-approaching.

The two-top is vacant as well. Hunk has taken away the plates and cleaned wiped away even the condensation rings left behind by their glasses. There’s nothing remaining there at all but the drink menu and condiment caddy, and a whole lot of unsaid words and missed opportunities, and a weird sense of regret that he can’t shove out of his chest no matter how many times he tries to remind himself that he barely knows either of those men.

He’s despondent when he makes his way back into the kitchen, to ask the cooks or Hunk or his boss if there’s anything that he needs to do now to prepare for closing.

But when he enters, Hunk is waiting for him, smiling in that coy way that he often does when he witnesses Lance waxing poetic and shooting his shot with any cute patrons that he happens to be serving during various shifts.

“Thanks for covering for me, Hunk,” Lance tells him, forcing himself to smile again and to pretend that he definitely isn’t super bitter about Hunk not only stealing his tip, but the last fleeting moments of sweet, validating interaction that he could have squeezed from those two hotties.

“Yeah, no problem, man.” That sly grin perseveres. Lance raises his brows, sucking in the side of his cheek and wondering if he’s even awake enough right now to question what in the world is going on. “The tip is yours, here.”

Before Lance can argue, before he can shove the money back to Hunk or reassure him that handling half of an order was fair enough work to earn the cash, Hunk places it in his hands and walks away, calling out to one of the cooks and asking some mundane work-related question that’s quickly drowned out in Lance’s thoughts when he realizes that, in the center of the singles in his hands, there’s a curled piece of paper.

It’s a receipt, he realizes, but there’s something written on the bottom in straight, messy hand.

_ “I think we’re ready to want you,” _ it says, followed by a phone number.

A dash,  _ xoxo. _

_ Keith, Shiro. _ And a sloppy heart.

The 35% tip is a nice gesture, he thinks, but he forgets about it immediately. He shoves it hastily in his pocket. He rushes to finish the last of his nightly duties so frantically that he’s sure he’s nothing but a blip of a person bounding from wall to wall like a human pinball.

It’s nearly midnight when he finds himself sitting quietly in his car, hands shaking as he types in the digits from the receipt on his phone, and listening in nervous agony as the line trills, clicks, and connects.

The voice that answers is undeniably Keith’s. And he says, slow and calm and aggravatingly sultry,

“I was hoping you’d call us tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> A special thanks to the lovely [Meeokie](https://twitter.com/meeokie) for requesting this story! She asked specifically for: “Shiro and Keith go on a hot date to Cracker Barrel and Lance is their cute waiter. I just want Lance to be awful. Also, there should be biscuits.”  
> So I hope that I managed to do that concept justice!
> 
> Lance’s fantasy “Zen Self” was based loosely on [this beautiful artwork by a good friend of mine](https://twitter.com/paladongs/status/1097214960411860993), so if you wanted to see that in the flesh, you should go show her some love!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! <3


End file.
